They're More Like Guidelines, Really
by OlafIsoherranen
Summary: In one life, he got hit by a truck and fell into the afterlife. In another, she woke up to a demon with floppy ears mumbling gibberish in his ear. The rules of magic are really more like guidelines, and telling someone that they can't do something has never been more foolish. She'll burn down the world to get him back. Harry will try to stop her, because that's what heroes do.


A swish of her wand, a silent incantation, and Harry Potter lay bloodied on his knees before her. It should have been more satisfying than it was, this conclusion of the greatest magical duel since Dumbledore and Grindlewald had crossed wands on a snowy field in Germany nearly a century ago, but she had noticed a distinct lack of emotion involving anything at all, lately. Probably a side effect of making a Horcrux, among other dark rituals she had participated in. Problems for later, always for later.

Harry spat out a glob of blood in front of him, before sneering in a way that would have made the late Lucius Malfoy proud. "You won't get away with this."

She wanted to laugh, but she found that she couldn't. Nothing was funny, nothing had been funny for quite some time. "I already have."

Harry just stared at her a myriad of emotions fluttering across his bloody face, before replying, "You might kill me, but you won't win. The Dark never will. It might not be me, it might not happen now, but someone will stop you."

Her red eyes glowed in the consuming darkness of the night. Their battleground was deserted, but then most people who weren't suicidal tended to be smart enough to not stick around when two archmages decide to have a duel to the death, and those who stuck around anyways usually did not live to see its end. Deflected spells and all that, you know.

"Is this a heroic speech? Because honestly if it is I've heard better. Come on Harry, haven't you seen Star Wars? I know your relatives were right bastards, but surely you can do better than this! Come on, tell me that if I strike you down you'll just become even stronger! Tell me that we're not so different, that I can still be saved, that there's still time to turn back towards the -" and here she practically spit the word, "- light." Her alabaster face twisted into a sneer of its own.

"This was never about the dark or the light. Voldemort was a fool, but if there's one thing he had right it was that there is no such distinction. Magic simply is. You and the lack wits that follow you will never win, because you will never understand, and without that understanding you will never have the power to challenge those who do."

Harry smiled, before shakily propping himself up on one knee and then standing up, his legs barely supporting his trembling frame. "I like to think I've made a rather good show of it so far, what with defeating one Dark Lord before I finished Hogwarts, and crippling the army of a second."

She did laugh at that. It wasn't a joyful or happy laugh, but an angry one. "I'm insulted that you think their lives mattered to me."  
"If my side won't win because we can't understand magic, then you won't win because you don't understand people. Lives matter, Livia. People matter." He looked at her, eyes sad and brimming with tears unshed. "You used to understand that, once."

"I used to be foolish, once."

"Destroying the world won't bring Theodore back."

She let loose a scream at that, enraged, "Don't you say his name, don't you dare say his name to me, Potter. You have no right!"

"I have more right than anyone else! I know what it's like to lose people Livia, damn it! You were with me throughout the war, you know we all know what it's like. We've all lost someone, don't stand there and scream at me for being angry that you think burning Britain and the world to the ground to get Nott back is an acceptable trade off!" Harry screamed right back at her.

"I didn't want to, I never wanted to harm any of you, and I wouldn't have. All you had to do was sit back and let me perform the ritual. Turn a blind eye, and everything would have been fine. Instead, you arrested me. Had me tried. Then attempted to throw me into Azkaban. For what Harry? A few thousand muggles? You brought this on yourself!"

They were both screaming now. Begging for the other to finally understand what they had failed to make them understand in a dozen arguments before now. Both of them knew it was fruitless, but neither of them wanted to kill a friend. They never had.

"They're people, for God's sake Livia, not potion ingredients! No matter how much you wanted him back, I wasn't going to sit back and let you sacrifice thousands of people to do it!" Harry pulled at his hair, not knowing how to possibly get through to her. He'd tried everything, but then so had Hermoine, and she was a lot better at debating than he was.

She looked at him blankly for a moment, breathing heavily after showing the most emotion she had in ages. Her red eyes made Harry shudder, his vision superimposing the last man he had seen with those eyes over her form, before he blinked it away. Voldemort was dead. He didn't want it to end that way here as well.

"You made your choice, and so did I. That's all we are in the end, I guess. Our choices."  
Livia raised her wand, "Avada Kedavra."

The world went black.


End file.
